Online film school designed with beginning filmmakers in mind.

7.29.2008

Making Web Pages By Hand

I code everything by hand. I've never liked WYSIWYGs. I like the "tactile" nature of hand coding. I like to be able to control everything, to get my hands dirty and really get into the guts of my web pages.

Odd to be talking like that about a completely digital experience.

"Yes, Doctor."

But even in the digital age there are various levels of involvement. Sure, the computer can try to do things for you, but knowing what is going on in the background is essential... especially if you want to work quickly on a complicated project.

Not that you need to know everything (I sure don't). But you do need to know where you can go to ask questions if you run into an issue. That's what I do all the time.

Especially with web stuff.

The web guys I know are probably getting sick of me coming to them, HTML guts oozing from my fingers, asking if they could tell me how to resuscitate my CSS.

Ah well. We can't all be surgeons. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to cut the thing open.